Ways to distinguish yourself – #123 Find a second reason to do anything significant

When you start any significant initiative all you need is one “good reason.” Next time, change the game. Find another important reason to do whatever you are planning to do. Try to do this even if the first reason you have got is REALLY good enough to engage in this initiative. Let me try to generalize this even further. Make this a fun exercise. Even for simple things that you do in your everyday life try to find a second reason to do it.

Let me give some examples (ranging from sophisticated to whacky)

1. You are a consultant and you are always flying

Second reason: Try to collect frequent flyer miles

Third reason: Meet old friends in different cities

Fourth reason: Watch latest movies on the flight and get caught up on entertainment

2. You commute about an hour to your work everyday

Second reason: You can listen to the latest audio books and get caught up on reading

Third reason: You can use a hands-free phone and talk to some long lost friends

3. You take out garbage every friday

Second reason: Go to the farthest dumping place and treat this as an exercise

Finding a second,third or fourth reason to do the same thing will not only stretch your creativity and imagination but will also show you how you can “leverage” yourself better. There is one thing that is common to everyone on this earth – each person has only 24 hours in a day. However, we also know that different people get different levels of value out of those 24 hours. One common factor that high-achievers have is that they can get higher leverage out of everything that they do. We can all get higher leverage only if we can think and act differently. Imagine the same eight hours of work that you put in everyday producing multiple returns rather than one. Can this be done? Of course yes! Does it take a lot of discipline to do it? You bet!